ServiceNow for non-IT: biomedical incidents

We continue exploring the use of ServiceNow to support and automate non-IT processes. As a matter of fact, we have run already more than 10 projects on what we call Business Process Automation (BPA) at Fruition Partners. These projects, such as the CERN project, leverage on the ServiceNow platform (PaaS) capability and is clearly an exciting new field outside the IT world.

Here is a quoted message from Alain Muller, one of our key consultant that supervised this project that went live today:

Our customer (a Swiss hospital) just went live with a new ServiceNow Application entirely created by Fruition Partners: Biomedical. The goal is to allow their organization to manage the biomedical equipments, including creation and updates of specific assets (scanners, anesthesia devices, lasers, and so on), fixing breakdowns and scheduling maintenances. What is interesting here is that we are clearly out of the IT field, and the Application will be used by non-IT people (doctors for example).
Here is some information about the work done from a functional perspective:

The bio-medical equipments are stored in a specific class of the CMDB, separated from IT and each equipment is linked to a bio-medical model, manufacturer and supplier, again separated from IT

All items are classified based on the Swiss national reference list of medical equipments (CNEH)

Scheduled maintenance tasks are automatically created based on the type of equipment; once the task is closed, a new one is scheduled by the system for the next period.

Maintenance tasks have a cost, that is reflected on the equipment they impact.

And some technical points that were challenging:

The Swiss national reference of medical equipments had to be available in French and German. Since this is master data, Translated Texts were used. But the issue was that, in Reference fields, the localized name was searchable, but the default name (French) was shown when the form loaded. As a workaround, the Reference field has a message below it with the name in German (see screenshot).

When an equipment has an overdue maintenance, the Related List appears in red (see screenshot)

An e-mail notification was to be sent a certain time before the maintenance is overdue, and the date of the maintenance can be modified after its creation

This project is one more success that proves the potential of ServiceNow as a PaaS platform and opens a brand new market in the medical industry.

Michel is one of the co-founders of Aspediens (acquired by Fruition Partners in 2016) and now CEO, Europe at Fruition Partners. As a serial entrepreneur with strong experience in innovation, product management and solution delivery, he spots trends and writes about the future of Service Management.